Malta, the Mediterranean's Treasure: Travels with D.L. Siluk

By Dennis L. Siluk


Malta is not on my top ten list, but I’m starting to wonder way not? Perhaps there are so many breathtaking places in the world to see. Malta is though number #11. I went here in 2000, I had to choose between Rhodes, Crete, and Cyprus, and Malta, and I looked at these for about two-months, and chose Malta. My friend, whom I met on Easter Island, renowned Geologist and Archeologist, Charles Love, had mentioned during a walk back to our hotel, with my wife Rosa, he’d known about Malta, and would liked to have gone, but just never got to it. At that time it was his 26th year on the island. I do have to say, Easter Island is on the top ten-list.

Nonetheless, Malta is a paradise of archaeological wonders. I really don’t know where to start with this short travelogue of sorts. Perhaps by saying, Malta has three islands; I went to two, Gozo and Malta itself. Its history dates back to 5000 BC, if not farther. It has a little gyro place next to our hotel and we ate the Greek food up the tuba.

But anyhow, one of the sites we saw was Mgarr, 3800 BC, everything exposed to the sun, out doors. And Ggantija, the one I liked most, and got a replica of the site. This site if I recall right is on Gozo, and dates back to 3600-BC. On Gozo, people leave their keys in their garage, outdoors, or in the front doors to their homes, as if they might forget them; try that in St. Paul, Minnesota, you will not have a home to come home to. Ggantija, has two temple units inside its thick walls, one with five apses, in one of them are three trilithic niches [more like open temple doors, sort of, or temple sacrificing overhead alters of sorts]. Somehow I can’t quite describe it. If you are interested, get a book, a picture will save me two paragraphs. We went to a few caves also, Ulysses, from Troy being one, and Gliar il-Kbir being another.

What I think my wife liked the most was the Hypogeum, said to have been built by giants. It dates back to 3300 BC, or further. It belonged to the so called cult of the dead, that is the ancestors of the living I suppose, it is built in the bowels of the earth, very religious rites were done here and a most holy temple of temples: that is to say, it would equal the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem [Holy of Holies’], if we were to make a comparison; at least to its people. Here is where the famous ‘Sleeping Lady,’ was discovered, the mama of mamas, representing a woman in large form laying on her right side on a couch. It may suggest the time of incubation, I’m not sure, nor do I think anybody else is.

I could go on and on about the many outdoor sites, Hagar Qim, Mnajdra Temples, Tarxien Temples, they are all over the place, but Malta itself is a kind of Citadel, or has one within its main city, like in Athens. I liked Athens, but besides its Acropolis, it can’t compare to the archeological wonders on Malta. If I had I a choice to go back to Athens or Malta, it would be Malta in a heartbeat, no offence, it is just the truth. Athens has a known history which is glorious, Malta has a mysterious one, if you were to go back farther than 700 BC, which is a draw for me. I went to Athens, and three of their Islands in l995, because of Mary Renault’s great novels of the Greeks, and never regretted it. But back to Malta, there are so more artifacts there the mind could not digest them all.